On Going Home, #1

by tycho garen
19th November

Installments from Knowing Mars’ Chapter 5 continue this week, which brings us to the half way point of this project. This chapter has a lot of short bits. Today we begin a short three part series from Kyp Ebner that follows this segment from our usual narrator, Matthew Connor. Enjoy!

Earth? Who could have seen that one coming. Though it makes perfect sense, it is perhaps the one place in the Solar System that I never quite expected to be headed to. And yet, here I am.

When I was a kid and they were just starting the Mars Colony I remember wondering why they kept ignoring the topic of Earth-Mars transit. When you you asked teachers in school they’d say something about how round-trip travel was generally unfeasible, but that the data uplink relays were really impressively fast. But we all knew that the data transit was really slow beyond all reason, particularly with the data that we all cared about; and we really didn’t have a clue why why transit was so “unfeasible.”

While we’re better at speeding data transit time, it’s still frustrating even in in the 40s! I have to imagine that the transit technology has changed a bit in the intervening few years, though I tend to glaze over when people talk about interplanetary engines. Having said that, the picture of the ship on the wall in my cabin–that description of this room is perhaps the best example of magical thinking that I’ve ever witnessed–looks quite futuristic, but I suspect that in a few years, it will look as out of date and old as the boxy brick like Mars Colony looks today.

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Of Earth

by tycho garen
18th November

The following story is a one-episode installment from the beginning of the 5th Chapter of Knowing Mars. We’ll continue from Chapter 5 later this week. Thanks for reading!

In Early 2543, Kyp Ebner returned to Earth after two and a half years away, to attend to some business that was long overdue for attention. Though the primary/given reason for the visit was to help Gus Rosell and Irena Trem with a hacking project and then courier some data for the Morgans back to Mars, it had also become clear to all of us that by moving to Mars they left the larger telepath community on earth without a real leadership or organization. While Gus and Irena, and a few others had taken up the charge as best they could, it wasn’t their project, and they had other more pressing commitments.

With the confirmation that Kyp Ebner was not, at least formally connected to the theft of ISA data, Kyp seemed to be a natural choice to serve as an emissary to Earth for the Morgans. While Kyp was on Earth, Taban and Kalian and I were working on securing transportation permits for as many Earth telepathy as we could manage, it was a stressful couple of months.

Thankfully, however, I was able to recover a journal entry written by Kyp Ebner during his trip back to Earth, that communicates the spirit of the times more clearly than I could ever hope to lo these fifty years later. Additionally, I should note that I have been somewhat unsure of how to address this portion of the narrative given my own involvement in the original sequence of events, but after some reflection, and sage advice I have decided to just “get on with it,” though I must confess that I have been unable to restrain myself from commenting directly at a couple of points.

Matthew Connor, MD
Mars Colony, 2596

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Returning #8

by tycho garen
12th November

We’re back this week with the conclusion of another installment of the Knowing Mars story that concludes today. This installment covered the remainder of Chapter 4. You can catch up on part one, part two, part three, part four, part five, and part six, of “Returning” as you like, and I hope you enjoy.

“I don’t know, if it weren’t serious I don’t think Gus would have called.” Kalian reasoned.

“Yeah, that’s true, but he’s probably right about the extra security problems, and having him in shambles isn’t a good thing either, even if he’s alright at the core.”

“Do you think Irena can handle it without him?” Kalian asked.

“Irena?” Taban’s voice echoed slightly, likely the product of a little telepathic “gain boost.”

“Gus’ new hacking partner,” Kyp and Kalian answered in unison.

“Ah, what do we do?” Taban asked,

Kalian and Kyp looked at each other for a moment before responding at the same time:

“I guess we wait and see,” Kalian said.

“I think I’m going back to Earth,” Kyp said.

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Returning #7

by tycho garen
11th November

We’re back this week with the conclusion of another installment of the Knowing Mars story that will finish up this week. This installment covers the remainder of Chapter 4. You can catch up on part one, part two, part three, part four, part five, and part six, of “Returning” as you like, and I hope you enjoy.

“Oh dear,” Kalian said.

“Everything ok?” Taban had apparently missed most of the message, and nearly all Kalian and Kyp’s reaction.

Kyp opened his mouth to explain, but couldn’t find the words. Kalian started instead, “Gus sent a message, seems a run didn’t go as well as he thought at first, and he’s worried about his security, and some data.” Kyp put the portable back in his bag and went over to the chair he’d been sitting in, and sort of collapsed into it. Perhaps he was more hungry than he thought.

“Is he ok? What about the data?” Taban asked, sounding concern. Taban appeared at the doorway of what passed for a kitchen. There was a smudge of something food related across Taban’s cheek, Kalian looked at it quizzically, and decided not to ask, but Taban rubbed the food away, having probably felt the thought anyway.

“Gus’ ok, and the data’s safe where it is, but I think he’s worried about the transmission. I suspect there’s a lot of it, and there haven’t been as many developments in transmission bandwidth in the last six months as we had predicted.”

“Well that’s good. Still, should we be worried?” Taban asked

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Returning #6

by tycho garen
10th November

We’re back this week with the conclusion of another installment of the Knowing Mars story that will finish up next week. This installment covers the remainder of Chapter 4. You can catch up on part one, part two, part three, part four, and part five of “Returning” as you like, and I hope you enjoy.

A moment later Gus continued, “Encryption on what we got is really thick too, but we weren’t being really careful when we extracted the information, because that wasn’t our objective. Irena’s good by the way, you’d like her, I think; also, I’m turning into you, which is scary.” Gus laughed.

“I’m calling off schedule, because I’m pretty sure that Busby got a sniff on me, again not sure, and the postmortem isn’t done. In a way it’s because we were so successful, they were completely unprepared for another assault, even though some of our folks had been nibbling at their door for… Well probably since our last run on them.

“Also, Busby still had scripts out looking for you, so even if he has a sniff on you, he doesn’t know you’re on Mars. If that’s comforting to you, there you are. After this, I’ve been thinking about coming to Mars sooner than we’d planned. Irena, she’s really good, and I don’t want to hang on here more than I need to or should. I’m not sure. I’m also not sure if we should have made the run against ISA, I mean, yeah, Busby’s people have been sniffing around a lot, but the more I think about the the mission, the more wrong it seems to feel, The more I feel like it just shouldn’t have happened that way.”

Gus took a deep breath. From even a planet away, Kyp felt his own anxiety rise in sympathy with Gus’, he passed the portable to the other and took a breath before Gus started talking again. Kyp looked up at Kalian who was standing by one of the chairs, looking quite concerned. Taban was still cooking, and hadn’t heard the portable ring, though he could probably feel Kyp and Kalian’s concern.

Gus continued: “I suppose on the upside, the data is pretty mucked up right now, I don’t suspect they’ll be able to recover more than whatever files they had withdrawn, when we attacked. This is a bit old, but also tell the Taban and Kalian, we’ve managed to finally track down all the people on the list from last year, but only a few people that we didn’t know about. We’ve been giving out materials, and they’ve been sending data back, so I suspect we’ll have a couple of big data packets compiled soon, though I’m still concerned about sending the data if I’ve been made, too much risk, and I’m thinking about getting someone to courier; though Irena isn’t worried about it. When did I become this neurotic?”

“The day you were born,” Kyp answered softly, even though this was only a recording. Kalian almost choked on a laugh.

“Lets not answer that, actually,” Gus said, apparently anticipating Kyp’s response. There was laughter in the background that Kyp assumed was Irena. “Anyway, We’re going to sit tight for the present and restrict our net activities for a while, at least until I feel more calm about this whole thing. I wanted to get your input though. I’m worried about sending the data, I’m not sure how to proceed, and I thought you should hear this from me before you hear it from Matt or someone. Be well, and I’ll here from you soon.” The message concluded with a burst of encoded signals, to ensure authenticity. Kyp thumbed the device off: he could run the code later.

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Returning #5

by tycho garen
7th November

I hope you enjoyed last week’s Trailing Edge story. We’re back with another installment of the Knowing Mars story, that will finish up next week. This installment covers the remainder of Chapter 4. You can catch up on part one, part two, part three, and part four of “Returning” as you like, and I hope you enjoy.

The portable took a second to load the feed as the system back in his quarters–crunched through the encryption. Kyp expected to see Gus’ boyish face on his portable, but there was no image, just audio. Audio which, particularly with the flex-compressions used to send data to mars, never quite sounded like it should:

“Kyp, I hope you can get this soon. Irena and I have been working on a way to get a bug into the ISA database in Busby’s department; you know the one that we were after a year ago for those contacts. We finally got an independent system to run on for the hack, which kept them off our tails and we were even able to run dialed up for while. It was successful, we think, and Irena reports that there hasn’t been any buzz about it so either nothing happened, or Busby is keeping this under wraps. I put a call out to Matt, but I haven’t heard from him yet.

“Irena seems to think that things are still safe–we were offline for a good fifteen hours, and she’s still crunching through the postmortem and the steal. I think she did a telepathic once over of me after I passed out–which was weird, the passing out that is, I’ll tell you about that later when I’m more together–but she’s not telling me, and I suspect if something is really wrong, you’ll hear about it before I will,” Gus said, there was a hushed conversation that the recording didn’t capture, Irena was probably in the room. While the ’scan the partner while they’re asleep after a run,’ thing wasn’t strictly speaking cooth telepathic behavior, Kyp could remember a dozen or so times that he and his hacking partners had done the same thing.

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Returning #4

by tycho garen
6th November

I hope you enjoyed last week’s Trailing Edge story. We’re back with another installment of the Knowing Mars story. This installment, in 8 parts, covers the remainder of Chapter 4. You can catch up on part one, part two, and part three of “Returning” as you like, and I hope you enjoy.

Kyp and Kalian both felt Taban think something along the lines of “grumble snipe” from the kitchen. They laughed harder, but a moment later a faint chime interrupted them.

“That’s not the door, is it?” Kalian asked regaining some composure and looking around for the source of the noise.

“No, I think it’s my portable,” Kyp said, checking his pockets for the device. “I put it in my bag when we were prepping, is it in the office?” Kyp stood and moved toward the office door.

“No, I think it’s by the door,” Kalian suggested.

“Right, thanks,” Kyp said, reaching his bag only after the chime had stopped. He doubted the call was real-time anyway: the people he knew on Mars–save Taban and Kalian–so rarely used the system, Earth was too far away, and he couldn’t fathom why anyone in orbit of the planet would be placing a call.

Sure enough, it was a message. “It’s from Gus calling from Earth.” Kyp reported, still standing over his bag while he drilled through a couple of menus to unlock the device and access the message. “And he cut the transmission time way down. That’s pretty impressive.”

“What’s he got to say? He’s well, right?” Kalian remembered that Kyp and Gus had a pretty complex communication schedule worked out to minimize the lag, and make sure that any data transmissions could make it effectively between them and two planets.

“I think so, at least as of last week he was fine, but give me a second,” Kyp said. He was a little concerned, this was an odd time for a call, and this seemed almost of out of character for Gus “Here goes,” Kyp said, activating the message.

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